Survey of India proposes to re-measure the height of Mount Everest

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Survey of India celebrates 250th anniversary

Survey of India completes 250 years of its service to the nation and is celebrating its achievements this year. A National Conference on, “Users’ Perspective on Geospatial Policy Framework in India” was organized by Survey of India (SoI) and FICCI, in New Delhi today. The 10th of April is also celeberated as National Survey Day.

As a part of its 250 years completion celebrations, Survey of India has proposed to re-measure the height of Mount Everest during the year 2017. India was the first country under Sir George Everest’s leadership as ‘Surveyor General of India’ to have declared the height of Mount Everest and establish it as the highest peak in the world in the year 1855. Subsequently, India once again carried out the exercise and declared the height of Mount Everest in the year 1956. After the Gorkha Earth Quake in the year 2015,various doubts were raised by the scientific community. In response to this, the Survey of India proposed re-measuring the height of Mount Everest as an ‘Indo-Nepal Joint Scientific Exercise’ along with Survey department of Nepal. The proposal has been forwarded to Nepal through diplomatic channels and the expedition will start after the formal concurrence of Government of Nepal is received.

Discussions and deliberations of all stakeholders of Survey of India products and services focussed on users’ perspective on Geospatial Policy Framework in India during the panel discussions.

The Secretary, Department of Science & Technology, Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, said that the panel discussions and the opinion and suggestions from all the stakeholders assembled in the forum would facilitate the inclusion of wider spectrum considering present day technology scenario and developmental needs and challenges in the country, and will prove to be very useful inputs for shaping the geospatial policy paradigm in the country.